Universal Music Japan has started this year another campaign of their ‘HR/HM 1000‘ series, that meaning the reissue of long time out of print albums from their Hard Rock / Heavy Metal catalog at the price of 1000 Yen = about 9 USD.
As part of the 2022 HR-HM 1000 Vol.4 series there’s another essential Y&T album, 1981’s ”Earthshaker”.
While most of the HR-HM 1000 series reissues take the original, first CD pressing mastering, in the case of ”Earthshaker” it was used the latest remaster – the same utilized on the now out of print SHM-CD release – which sounds pretty awesome.
Y&T founder & frontman Dave Meniketti was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer few days ago, fortunately caught early and the likelihood of surviving this is very high. One of the greatest melodic hard rock musicians ever, hope he recover soon.
“Earthshaker” was Y&T’s first album for A&M and the first under their current name, after changing it from ‘Yesterday and Today’ used for two prior records.
This LP changed everything for Meniketti & Co., with a polished production (yet still retaining a quite metallic sound) and full of radio-friendly hooks. The whole album standout driven by hot riffs, even present on the ballsy ballad “I Believe In You”, a reference for just about every hair metal to come in the way of crafting their ‘power ballads’.
The remaster on “Earthshaker” is excellent, particularly this one rescues Phil Kenmore’s vocals which on the original LP were too much buried in mix on several tracks.
01 – Hungry For Rock
02 – Dirty Girl
03 – Shake It Loose
04 – Squeeze
05 – Rescue Me
06 – Young And Tough
07 – Hurricane
08 – Let Me Go
09 – Knock You Out
10 – I Believe In You
Dave Meniketti – lead vocals, guitars
Joey Alves – guitars, vocals
Phil Kennemore – bass, vocals
Leonard Haze – drums, vocals
waiting original rip from CD